


Sam Wilson's Phantastmagorical Uprising Adventures

by AgentMal



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: 2020, Alternate Universe - Dystopia, Anarchy, Anti-Communist Language, Banned Together Bingo, Bullying, Captain America Sam Wilson, Gen, Homophobia, Homophobic Language, I mean dystopia can be in the eye of the beholder so I guess that last tag is subjective, Law Enforcement, Martial Law - Freeform, Protests, Revolution
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-20
Updated: 2021-02-01
Packaged: 2021-03-18 12:40:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,979
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28867143
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AgentMal/pseuds/AgentMal
Summary: It started with the pandemic. Well, it started with the crazy train that was 2020 from week one, or even day one. But then came the pandemic, and then the protests, and then the martial law, and then the uprisings, and before long it was a whole new world. And through it all Sam Wilson, Captain America, is trying to look out for as many as he can.
Kudos: 5





	1. Anoter Day, Another Organized Demand For Justice

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 1 is a fill for the BTB2020 square Bullying
> 
> CW: Counter protesters at a BLM march verbally harass a pair of women with homophobic rhetoric. Homophobic language is implied but not explicitly stated.

It was a beautiful summer day, if judged by the weather alone. Clear sky, mild breeze, and tepid temperatures. Of course, that did little to temper the fact that the pandemic was raging, our criminal justice system was as broken as ever, and after months of protests for reform, even with widespread popular support, it looked like few places were going to get significant measures on their ballots in the next election at state or local levels, forget about federal. Sometimes Sam got downright pessimistic about it all.

Of course, then he would look for some avenue of opportunity for forward action, some way forward. Even if he couldn’t be truly hopeful about it, he would always look for the best path forward, and would always work for it, one foot in front of the other.

That’s what he was doing here, today, out on the streets in his winged Captain America suit, carrying the shield proudly, facemask demanding SAY THEIR NAMES, at the head of a march. Today’s march was from the site of an “officer involved shooting” through city streets to the courthouse where none of the officers involved would likely be brought to any justice.

Things started out well. It was well organized, with support spots along the route with water, first aid supplies, and volunteers with walkie talkies. So when it turned out there was a cluster of “counter protesters” amassing at a park ahead, Sam heard about it well before they reached it. The march route would take them past two sides of the park. The word over the walkie talkie was that a number of them were open carrying. Sam tightened the shield straps on his arm and took a turn leading the chanting call and response. 

As soon as the park came in view ahead, Sam could see them. Extremists waving American flags, “All Lives Matter” signs, the Thing Blue Line flag, and all manner of racist and white supremacist iconography. There was more than one confederate flag. There were also a whole mess of unique signs each with their own misguided, dismissive, or outright hateful sentiment. 

Soon enough the march had reached the park and the “counter protesters” started shouting, calling out their own chants, even coming into the street to try to get a reaction. Some of them were all but shoving the protesters, or standing in their way to force an altercation or stop the march. 

They hurled insults and slurs of all kinds, some individuals or small clusters singling people out to harass. A middle aged white woman with a man her age who might be her husband and another who might be her son singled out Jen and Terri, who were marching by Sam holding a sign with the pride flag colors striped across the Black Power fist icon. As soon as they were singled out, the white woman viciously throwing homophobic slurs, they too each others’ hands and kept walking even more proudly, keeping their eyes looking straight ahead. 

Some of the language was so hateful, even though Sam knew they were right to not engage, right to ignore the bigots as much as possible, he still hurt for his sisters. Sam put his hand on Jen’s shoulder for a moment, squeezing it in support. 

She smiled grimly, keeping her eyes straight ahead as she said, “It’s nothing we haven’t heard all our lives.”

Terri said, “I’ve been bullied since I was in primary school. Both for who they thought I’d love and for the color of my skin. But schoolyard bully or school officer or these bigots: they’ll stop when there’s consequences. And if we don’t demand they are held accountable, then who will. That’s why we’re here.”

Jen continued, “And maybe these guys,” she indicated the shouters, “will help wake up people who say it’s not a big deal, who don’t realize how bad it can get.” She wasn’t wrong: in addition to formal press leading and trailing the march, many of the fellow marchers were filming, posting, live streaming, and otherwise documenting.

Sam could only hope this all amounted to substantive change this time.


	2. It's Just How These Things Can Go

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A counter protester to a BLM protest singles Sam Wilson out to harass.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is a fill for the BTB2020 square Anti-Communist

A few of the people who had come off the park sidewalk to heckle them on the street came around the front of the march to yell right at their faces, walking backward to stay in front of the steadily progressing marchers.

One such person put himself directly in front of Sam, yelling right in his face. To his surprise this person’s problem was apparently centered on remarks Sam had made in support of universal healthcare.

“Another commie who wants a welfare state, ladies and gents!” Still yelling, the man gestured to either side as if addressing a crowd, but he was keeping eye contact with Sam, shouting right in his face. 

“Would you like a mask?” he asks, voice carefully soft, offering a standard individually wrapped hospital-blue facemask.

“No, I don’t want a mask!” he yelled, moisture hitting the tiny exposed part of Sam’s face. Sam, well practiced, doesn’t flinch. The man didn’t pause in his tirade, “You can’t make me wear a mask, it’s against the constitution! You know who makes everyone wear masks? China! Fucking communist autocracies where people have no rights!”

“No one is making you, I’m just offering,” he said calmly, “there’s a statewide mask mandate, but it’s not enforced.”

“It’s not enforceable, it’s against the constitution and doesn’t even help!” 

“Where people predominantly wear masks,” he said mildly, as if they were having a pleasant conversation, “infection rates have slowed a lot. They work.”

“He wants everyone to wear a mask, he wants everyone to have everything handed to them, so no one has to work for anything, he wants to turn us into China, people!” he was again gesturing to the imagined vast audience all around him, though there were only the marchers continuing to walk by and behind Sam, now and again patting him on the back in solidarity. Well, there was a smattering of other counter protesters cheering the man on. 

“He’s a fucking commie, and you let him carry our flag?!” Now he was addressing the people marching with Sam. 

Jen, who had been stoic when being shouted at herself, took the bait in his defense, “We’re  _ proud _ to have him carry the flag! He stands for us, for equality and justice for  _ all! _ ”

The man transferred his focus to Jen, though he was still walking backward right in front of Sam. “He wants everyone to have everything handed to them! He’s a fucking commie!”

“You call anything you don’t like communist. You don’t even know what it means!” 

“He’s a commie, and so are you, you ——-!”

Jen’s voice raised even more, for all that she otherwise didn’t respond to his slur. “He’s an American hero! And he stands for  _ real _ American values: equality, democracy, our children’s future—”

Sam tried to redirect focus back on himself, far more comfortable with that than with it on anyone around him, especially from someone as vitriolic and possibly violent as this guy. Part of why he was here to draw focus to keep the others safe. “It’s not about communist or socialist or capitalist, it’s about expanding programs  _ we already have _ for a  _ common sense safety net _ . No one should have to die just because they get sick, when we’re the richest nation in the world. Just like,” and here he was conscious of the cameras trained on their interaction, “Just like people shouldn’t die just because their police are racist. Officers of the law who are supposed to  _ protect _ and  _ serve _ .”

That got the screamer redirected back at himself. But another problem was rushing into focus.

The front of the march was turning the corner around the park, and now he could see that lining the other side of the street, across from the park, were hundreds of police in riot gear.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Recognizing they're being kettled, most of the march reroutes while Sam and a few others stay behind to delay the police from relocating to the new march front.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> BTB2020 fill for the square Black Character with Agency

Sam could tell it was about to get hairy. There were cops in riot gear lining the street on the left, angry “counter-protesters” lining the park on the right. As he started entering this column, leading the marchers behind him into it, he heard even more distressing news. 

Someone pushed through the crowd from the right to get to him and the organizers. They were one of the people manning tables in the park, with water and milk and first aid and walkie talkies, and they were saying that the police came and “confiscated” their radios and were destroying or confiscating their supplies. 

“And they were coming from ahead on the route! I don’t know how far they’ve gotten, and we’ve lost contact with the other support spots!”

Sam thought very quickly and made a decision. He shouted mic check to prompt the crowd around him to carry his words down the line. 

“We are being kettled!” (“We are being kettled!”)

“We are re-routing!” (“We are re-routing!”)

“Everyone from here to Carter Street” (“Everyone from here to Carter Street”)

“Goes back and goes up Carter Street” (“Goes back and goes up Carter Street”)

“Everyone behind them, stop!” (“Everyone behind them, stop!”)

“Stay where you are until the front has passed” (“Stay where you are until the front has passed”)

“Organizers will head to the new head of the march” (“Organizers will head to the new head of the march”)

“We deserve to be heard!” (“We deserve to be heard!”)

“We don’t deserve police violence for peacefully protesting!” (“We don’t deserve police violence for peacefully protesting!”)

He “handed off” the mic to one of the organizers, who continued rallying even as she was slipping through the crowd to head toward the new front. 

Sam lingered, meanwhile, with a handful of previously-negotiated others, letting the march retreat away from him and turning instead toward the massed police who were looking on. 

The Carter Street detour was one of several charted in case trouble was spotted ahead, and it wasn’t posted anywhere online; only the couple dozen organizers knew it. Hopefully it would take the police a good long while to guess their new route and redirect there. With any luck it would be long enough to prevent them from organizing another funnel. And Sam was going to try to get that to be even longer. He walked forward, him and the few around him, not sure exactly how they were going to keep the police occupied but ready to put himself on the line to give those behind him cover to retreat. 

Just then a teenager came to stand beside him. A kid. 

“Who are you? You have to go back with the others.”

Everyone still with Sam was particularly prepared to be on the receiving end of police violence: some were veterans, some were athletes, but all were adults. 

“I’m Miles,” said the kid, “and I’m staying.”

Their little off-shoot march, maybe 20 or so people who were using signs and their spacing to make themselves look more numerous, were slowly marching forward into the funnel. The police had certainly heard the mic-check shouts and were aware the bulk of the organized protesters were heading away, but they were not themselves disbanding to form up elsewhere in order to keep an eye on Sam’s little unit. Those around Sam, in tern, were trying to get and hold attention- shouting, singing, one or two even lightly heckling police, others heckling the bigots on the right. It was a situation orchestrated to stall the police from heading toward the new head of the march route, but one Sam was highly aware could escalate to violence. 

“How old are you?”

“I’m 16.” 

“Uh, huh.” This kid was 14 max, and probably more like 12. But the police would shoot him or beat him or taze him like he was 18.

“But I’m stronger than I look, and I’m… a freerunner! They won’t catch me.”

As their group was making its way down the street, the gap between them and the main march widening, the police lining the street behind them were starting to curve around to hem them in from behind. Sam could still hear the retreating mass’ call and response in the distance.

“Hands up!” (“Don’t shoot!”)

“Hands up!” (“Don’t shoot!”)

“Hands up!” (“Don’t shoot!”)

“Kid, even if that’s true, do you want your mom seeing whatever is about to happen? Think about her.”

Suddenly the police started putting on gas masks. Shit.

Sam was glancing in every direction to keep abreast of the quickly deteriorating situation, only momentarily looking at Miles as he urged, “You can still slip into the park, get out.”

Miles, however, seemed to be resolved. “It’s my choice.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things escalate. From protests to martial law to a massive uprising to the dissolution of the world as we know it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> BTB2020 fill for "Masses Will Revolt"

After the chaos and violence of that day (mostly by police) the footage from their march was largely sensationalized and exaggerated, and mixed with unrelated footage, to justify an even bigger crackdown. 

Curfews were heightened, and spread from a few major cities to most high-population counties in the US. One had to get papers to prove their legal exception from curfew to leave the house, and police could and would stop people on the street to demand their papers. Of course, the bias of those making these stops meant some people could come and go freely regardless of “exception” while others were targeted and harassed even if they did have their documents on them. 

Police were finally given free reign to put their increasingly-militarized toys and training to use. More and more places, they patrolled as if they were the military and they were executing martial law. The phenomenon of anonymous officers who would stop people on the street for no clear reason and take them “into custody” in unmarked vans became commonplace all over. 

Marches continued, and the death count of people at the hands of law enforcement went up and up.

Rumors were spread in radical right circles that the marches only had the numbers they had because they were padded with “illegals” bussed across the border, which in turn with all the other inflammations of xenophobia lead to the instigation of higher and higher frequencies of ICE raids all over the country. Families were torn apart, many people taken to the concentration camps called “holding facilities” regardless of their immigration status, even people who were born here. And though this happened before, the sheer numbers skyrocketed. 

Except plenty of people weren’t convinced. They weren’t convinced the protesting would have been violent if the police weren’t there, and they weren’t convinced the people massing weren’t their neighbors, and for those who were spared the direct attention of the police in pseudo-martial law, they weren’t convinced their neighbors deserved the harassment and indignities being doled out. 

Eventually some threshold was passed and San Antonio of all places led the way. When demands that the mayor roll back police directives went ignored, thousands of people said enough is enough and massed at the city center, demanding he resign. News of the crowd spread and led to more and more people joining, until it was tens of thousands of people, more than the police could drive off. Iconically, a line of riot-gear-laden police broke when some of them threw down their shields and helmets and walked to join the people. Others threw down their gear and just left. Then more and more did the same, until there were more shields and helmets on the ground than on officers. The remaining police, increasingly outnumbered, didn’t dare deploy their anti-riot measures, and the entire situation remained at a stand still. 

For days the mayor refused any change, and for days the crowd grew, until the mayor finally signed a few half-measured to disempower the police. The people weren’t having it, demanding ever more drastic changes the longer he hemmed and hawed. Eventually the people declared they were having an election independent of the sitting government, and got higher turnout than the county had had for any election for years. Of course, by this time the national guard was being deployed, the governor and president long involved, but by the time troops arrived the new government had been created, the new leaders elected, and the local law enforcement was now recognizing them. Before all news coming from the area could be shut down, and before all internet and cell service was cut off, the phenomenon was repeating in major cities all over the nation, and smaller ones, too. 

Those with vested interests in stopping the change were desperate, and knew that these populations were being inspired by each other, learning from each other, and strengthening their sense of legitimacy by seeing the success of each other. So they did what they thought they had to, to cut off the spread and weaken localities until they could be brought in line one by one. Central servers were either shut down or major lines coming from them were cut off. Cell service providers were shut down. Power plants were shut down.

From there, things became exponentially more chaotic. Rumors of armies on the move, violently reestablishing the status quo across the nation region by region, were widespread, and in many places groups of the newly self-incorporated destroyed major bridges or posted guards on choke points in the major freeways and roads. In some cities, suburbs, and towns, power generation was restored locally, and in some it wasn’t. Some communities started rebuilding local servers, and hoped to reconnect to their adjacent neighbors, and then further and further away, on whatever of the existing infrastructure they could use.  


For much of the United States, the new world order was whatever the world order was in a 20 mile radius of you. 

Through all this, Sam Wilson has been doing the best he could wherever he happened to be, and when he saw a city or town or stronghold could spare him, he moved along to the next.


End file.
